Key to the Highway

February 25, 2015

Development of the British Blues and Rhythm

--- show 24 ---2-25-2015

Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation1968 & 1969

+ Dupree 1969

Jeff Beck Group1967-69

I do believe this show will wind up being one of my
very favorites for this entire British Blues project.I’ve had the second Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation album in my collection since the early
seventies and played the bejeezus out of side one, but those were the days of
vinyl so I seldom flipped it over to the other side.When I saw a CD of their first two albums for
a reasonable price I jumped on the opportunity and consider it one of my wisest
decisions.As you likely know by now, my
preference is for uptempo, rockin’ Blues but these guys do such a good job on
the slow burners that there isn’t anything for me not to like on the entire
disc, but the best of the lot are still Change Your Low Down Ways, Fugitive and
I Tried from that first side of Doctor Dunbar’s Prescription.

As of 2001, the year my favorite reference book (Blues-Rock
Explosion) for this project was published, Dunbar had appeared on more than 110
albums with over 30 going gold or platinum.Born January 10th 1946 in Liverpool, Aynsley started his
musical experience with the violin at age nine before switching over to the
drums by the age of twelve.He started a
Jazz trio after dropping out of school when he was fifteen, then joined the
trad Merseysippi Jazz Band, all the while falling under the influence of more
modern drummers like Art Blakey, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Gene Krupa, and Buddy
Rich.

From August 1963 to January 1964 he was with Derry
Wilkie and the Pressmen which would mutate into the Flamingos with Dunbar being
one of five members from the Pressmen, the new band spending enough time at
Hamburg’s Tanz Club to put out a German language single.Returning to England, April 1964 saw the band
backing up Freddie Starr, whose previous band included drummer Keef Hartley who
would succeed Dunbar years later in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Starr took the
Flamingos back to Germany for a few months but by the time the group broke up
in late 1964 Dunbar had moved on for a brief stint with the Excheckers.

Aynsley joined a revamped Mojos, a group that already
had three singles that made the top 30 in the UK charts but split because of
personality conflicts.With Dunbar
holding down the drumming, Stu James and the Mojos put out another two 45s
before Aynsley’s departure in September of 1966.Having moved to London with the Mojos,
Aynsley sat in with Alexis Korner for an audition, and while not getting that
job did get an invitation to try out for the band of one of the audience
members, John Mayall.The next day,
Dunbar was a member of the Bluesbreakers along with Peter Green and John
McVie.“John Mayall put me into the
Blues thing.It built me up, because I
was playing with good musicians, and hearing all types of Blues.When I heard about him, I was told he was
playing just country Blues.I thought, ‘Jesus,
here we go.’But it wasn’t like
that.It was good – solid and full.”

During his time with the Bluesbreakers, two singles
were released in Britain as well as the international LP A Hard Road.They also backed the American pianist on his
LP Eddie Boyd and His Band (Fleetwood Mac would back him on anther album) and
put out a very hard to find EP with Paul Butterfield.All that accomplished in about six months
with the band. In that span, Dunbar also
auditioned for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but at least partially because
Mitch Mitchell was prepared to take a smaller salary Mitchell got the job.

Although there appeared to be no animous between the
two (“I was grateful to John.He
introduced me to the musicians I wanted to play with, although I eventually got
the sack for playing too advanced.He
wanted me to sit in the background and just play away.I didn’t think I would progress until I left.”),
the name of Aynsley’s own band was in retaliation to his termination.

Gone from the Bluesbreakers in March of 1967, in
mid-April Aynsley first teamed up with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood in the Jeff
Beck Group featured in the other half of today’s show, although only for a
brief stay as he gave notice that he wished to start his own group right after
the 45 Tallyman / Rock My Plimsoul was released in July.He was around long enough to be behind his
drum kit as the Beck Group backed Donovan on his Barabajagal album, but Dunbar
wanted to be the one setting the direction for his music: “My group will still
be playing the Chicago style of Blues but we’ll be moving towards a more modern
rhythm.Not towards Jazz, we have to
stay commercial.That’s very important.”
On August 12th 1967, Aynsley
pulled double duty at the Seventh Annual Jazz and Blues Festival at Windsor
when his Retaliation debuted and he also fulfilled his commitment to play with
Beck until they could find a replacement.Mickey Waller took over at their next gig.

Aynsley had been working at putting together a lineup
for his new band.Victor Brox would
handle most of the vocals as well as playing keyboards, cornet and violin, guitarist
John Moorshead also took over on some of the vocals and bassist Keith Tillman
rounded out the ensemble.Tillman, who
had previously played with Stone’s Masonry before Martin Stone left to join the
earliest recorded version of Savoy Brown, would be short-lived with the
Retaliation as Alex Dmochowski played bass on all but the first of the band’s
recording sessions.

Brox had his own band going since 1964, the Victor
Brox Blues Train, which included Tillman and Brox’ bride-to-be Annette Reis,
and the couple also performed as a folk Blues duo.Concurrent to the band, Victor was putting
his Manchester University philosophy degree to use as a teacher until giving up
the day job to work as a Blues duo with Alexis Korner for nine months through
early 1968.

Moorshead’s first known group was the Moments when, in
1964, he replaced John Weider who left to join Johnny Kidd and the
Pirates.The other guitarist in the band,
which broke up near the end of the year, was Steve Marriott.By September of 1965, Moorshead was himself
in Kidd’s Pirates, again replacing Weider.Moorshead and two other members left Kidd to become the Pirates, but
that only lasted three months before the group dissolved and John took over in
Shotgun Express (featuring Rod Stewart) when Peter Green departed, again a
short stay as in November John left in favor of Julian Covey and the Machine
where he remained until signing on with the Retaliation.

The Retaliation’s first single (Warning, b/w Cobwebs) was
released in September 1967.It was
around this time that Dmochowski took over for the departing Tillman, who was on
his way to the Bluesbreakers in time to record on the Bare Wires LP.The band rarely played their second single live,
the opening number on their first LP and our show today, because they found it
difficult to perform the whistling without cracking up on stage, which is too
bad because it’s a great old standard.Apparently
the album was delayed because of three failed attempts to record at the Blue
Horizon Club but finally hit the record bins in July 1968.

The reviews were good.About the 45 taken from the album, Beat Instrumental considered it “a
very unusual and really rather clever performance.Lots of off-beat drumming early on; a sort of
African atmosphere and then whistling and good singing.Even if it doesn’t make it as a single then
it will help boost the album …” and saying, “The group has now developed into
one of the most meaningful and original Blues groups in England.”

But likely nothing meant as much to Dunbar as Mayall’s
comments to Melody Maker.“The
Retaliation are a fine band.They are
one of the few British groups playing contemporary Blues music reflecting the
world today and not just reproducing Blues from years ago that the audience
have on record at home.”

Reviews for their second LP, Dr. Dunbar’s
Prescription, were relatively good with Beat Instrumental giving a five star
rating, but Melody Maker’s Chris Welch was not so pleased, suggesting that
perhaps “all bands who are going to associate themselves with Blues to listen hard
to themselves, maybe buy each other’s LPs, and ask themselves if they are going
to be content with a scene that is rapidly becoming one of the biggest bores of
the day.”

Despite Welch’s condemnation of the entire Blues genre
in England, record companies were actively signing up as many bands as they
could to take advantage of the lucrative market, and this was reflected by the
fact that the magazine he worked for opted to put on a one day concert at the London
Royal Festival Hall on November16th 1968.Billed as the Blues Scene ’68 with a lineup including Muddy Waters, John
Mayall, Champion Jack Dupree, and the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, the show was
so successful (despite the hall’s 3,000 person capacity there were many more
turned away at the door) that Melody Maker followed it up by cosponsoring six
tour dates in February billed as the Blues Scene ’69.Along with the Retaliation and Dupree, the
tour also featured John Lee Hooker, Jo Ann Kelly, and the Groundhogs.

The Retaliation hit the American circuit in March 1969
with Mick Weaver (aka Wynder K Frog) brought in as organist for the six week
tour.In order for Brox to put more
emphasis on his piano and vocal skills along with playing the 12-string guitar
and cornet, Tommy Eyre took on the organist duties upon their return to the UK.Eyre was best known as a member of Joe Cocker’s
Grease Band.

With Dunbar informing Melody Maker that their next
album would be “more advanced”, the John Mayall-produced To Mum from Aynsley
and the Boys was released in September.“It’s
a struggle because in England the Blues fans expect you to just bang away, or
it’s not Blues.In America, you’ve got
to be advanced.Perhaps the fans here
will like it more in the end.”

Since we don’t have room for the album today, I’m sure
most of it will appear as a brief segment in one of the coming month’s
shows.I don’t agree with the
comparisons, but Disc and Music Echo related that “Dunbar’s third LP for
Liberty is undoubtedly his best … Despite the limited eight tracks, there’s
something for every Blues fan”, while Melody Maker considered it a “great
improvement on his previous albums … with better recording quality and more
original ideas”.

In 1970, Liberty put out a fourth Retaliation album
but Aynsley appeared on only four outtakes of its ten tracks.In the meantime, Dunbar and Eyre had left to
form Blue Whale in November 1969.As
Dunbar told Modern Drummer, “The band’s ego got too much for me to cope with
and I had to dump them.They couldn’t
see any farther than where they were at.They thought that because we had got to the point we were selling out everywhere
and making quite a bit of money, that we had reached stardom. … So I decided it
was time to get rid of that band and start another one”.

Blue Whale would be very short-lived, lasting only two
months mostly due to difficulty in holding members together.Beginning January 1st 1970, the band
embarked on a five day Scandinavian tour followed by their London debut on the
20th but ultimately broke up when Dunbar left at the end of February
to join Frank Zappa and the Mothers.The
eponymous LP Blue Whale was released after the band’s breakup, but mixed
reviews make it too insignificant to pursue (meaning I’m not going to waste my
money.I’ve spent enough already!)

After the sixties, Aynsley went on to a long, diverse
and successful career as evidenced by the afore-mentioned gold and platinum
records.After six records with Zappa (including
the LP Somewhere in the City with John Lennon and Yoko Ono), he left at the end
of 1972 with Flo and Eddie, who had been with the Mothers but perhaps better
known in the Bay Area as The Turtles, just after Zappa was pushed off the stage
by an exuberant fan and became restricted to a wheelchair.

Aynsley was with David Bowie in 1973 and 1974 and
recorded two albums with him and, also in 1974, joined Jack Bruce and Stevie
Winwood in recording Lou Reed’s LP Berlin.All in all, Dunbar recorded on twelve
LPs in two years, leading him to be considered the best session man in the
music industry.Again in 1974, Aynsley
joined the bay Area Rock-Jazz fusion group Journey, staying with them through
four albums and leaving when they changed their focus to more pop-oriented
balladeering.

Dunbar went back to being a session drummer in 1976, most
notably recording for Sammy Hagar and then with Nils Lofgren.In 1978 he joined the Jefferson Starship on
stage and in the studio for four albums and stayed with them into 1982, his
longest stint so far.Ready for some
time off, Aynsley retired in San Francisco until Whitesnake recruited him in
1985, staying with them through their breakthrough LP Whitesnake ’87.Aynsley then tried for another retirement
session, but in 1994 the allure of being in bands brought him back out on the
road and into the studio with the likes of Pat Travers, UFO, John Lee Hooker,
and Michael Schenker.He was also active
on tribute albums to Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith,
Queen, and Metallica

In 1996, Dunbar joined Alvin Lee and Eric Burdon for a
tour under the name Best of the British Blues, then entered the studio with
Mother’s Army for the progressive Metal-Rock album Fire on the Moon.In October 1996 he was back with Burdon on
the world touring stage and, as one of the New Animals, recorded three albums
and a live DVD.In 2000 they appeared
with John Mayall and Spencer Davis at the Grammy Awards and later in the year
with Davis at the Democratic National Convention.

In 2003 Aynsley was awarded a Bammies Walk of Fame
Award (created by our local magazine Bay Area Musician) along with the other
members of Journey and similarly in 2005 a Hollywood Walk of Fame Award in
recognition of the band’s album sales of over 75 million.According to his official website, Aynsley “continues
to play hundreds of live shows all over the world as well as his session work.”

Familiar
names on a long list of artists that Aynsley played or recorded with that did
not show up elsewhere in my reading were Herbie Mann, Keith Emerson, Shuggie
Otis, and Little Chrisley.Would it be presumptuous
of me to think that last one is our own local harmonica product, Little John
Chrisley?

*************************

And
the other half of today's show ain't too shabby, either.Jeff Beck might be my favorite guitar player
when he’s not playing his avant garde Jazz stuff.Loved his innovations with the Yardbirds but
his stuff on the first Jeff Beck Group’s
two albums (he soon afterward formed another band with the same name) was more
of a heavy Blues-influenced guitar for the most part, but he wasn’t afraid to
throw in an acoustic traditional British tune like Greensleeves.His version of Willie Dixon’s I Ain’t Superstitious
just might be my favorite British Blues number, period and, together with Rod
Stewart’s vocals, Morning Dew and Old Man River (from the opera Porgy and Bess)
provide counterpoints to the rest of the Truth album.His long-awaited first 45 after leaving the
Yardbirds, Hi Ho Silver Lining, is not what I was so anxiously anticipating but
remains one of my guilty pleasures while the instrumental flip side Beck’s
Bolero brings to my mind the pomposity of a conquering general returning
through the gates of RomeIf the
musicians would have remained together after that song’s session, it could have
been another “supergroup” with Jimmy Page (I believe future Zeppelin bassist
John Paul Jones as well) and the Who’s drummer Keith Moon taking part.I believe this must be the single version because
it has a different intro than I am used to from the LP.Other than a couple of Elvis tunes the second
album, Beck-ola, contains only original tunes that, while obviously less
familiar than the songs on Truth, still provide us with some fine musicianship.

*************************

Along
with Dmochowski, Dunbar also added a few tunes to Champion Jack Dupree’s album
From New Orleans to Chicago.I have
misplaced the liner notes to the disc so cannot tell you who was playing guitar
but, nonetheless, this might be my favorite album by the transplanted American
pianist and he is probably my favorite pianist and personality-intense showman.The album also includes backing by members of
the Keef Hartley Band, Free, and Stan Webb from Chicken Shack, but I think this
portion is, once again, my favorite.

*************************

In
mid-1967 Dunbar assembled what would have amounted to another super group
featuring Jack Bruce on bass (in the midst of Cream’s popularity) and Peter
Green on guitar (this would have been about the time Green left the
Bluesbreakers and likely just before the earliest Fleetwood Mac performances) while
bringing vocalist Stewart in from the Beck Group for a session that produced
our closing number, Buddy Guy’s Stone Crazy.Although it closes out our show, this was the earliest formation of the
Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation.

February 11, 2015

Key to the Highway, Mardi Gras edition--- 2-11-2015
---

show
in advance of Mardi Gras (February17th)

So, is it too early for a Mardi Gras
party?It seems like it to me because I
think of it as being much closer to St. Patrick’s Day so I am too often unprepared
and late; a little early is better.Once
again this year’s annual presentation features doses of good rockin’ Blues,
Cajun and Zydeco, and Rock ‘n’ Roll and Jazz, just the right things to put you
in the mood.Come on, get out that
French to English dictionary and start thinking about it.

January 28, 2015

Am I getting bored with Fleetwood Mac?Are four shows to many?Or am I just blown away by the stunningly powerful
vocals of this lady they share today’s show with?I was aware of Jo Ann Kelly very early on from her version of Big Bill Broonzy’s I
Feel Good when it appeared on one of the Immediate compilation LPs, Blues
Anytime, which came on the market back around 1968 and, while I very much liked
her rendition, it was not enough to make me delve much deeper into her apparently
acoustic Blues leanings.This impression
was strengthened when she was one of the main contributors to another pair of compilation
discs for Liberty Records, Me and the Devil and I Asked for Water She Gave Me
Gasoline, because I again thought the whole albums were more country Blues
oriented than I enjoyed; funny how my opinion has changed as almost all of
these tracks made it into today’s show.Shame on me!I had the same
opinion of her younger brother Dave but do not feel the same remorse because I
had very little of his music in my collection (only two songs plus one with Jo
Ann, Buy You a Diamond Ring, all on the Me and the Devil LP mentioned above)
and he remained an acoustic guitarist until 1969, well into the urban-oriented
Blues boom.It should be noted, however,
that he was voted the Best Acoustic Artist in the BBC polls for the years 1991,
1994, 1996, 1997 and 1998 as well as making himself into an excellent electric
guitarist.

Jo Ann was one of a group of Blues players who became
acquainted as they hung around at Carey’s Swing Shop, the only store at the
time to import American R&B records in their South London neighborhood.Obviously Dave was among them as were T.S. “Tony”
McPhee and Steve Rye and they will appear together in some combination in a
handful of groups I am anxiously awaiting presenting to you in the next few
months.Another common accompanist for
Jo Ann was Bob Hall, again part of the record store crowd.When he went with Miss Kelly to a club that
did not have a piano, he would accompany her on mandolin.In late 1967, Dave accepted Hall’s invitation
to join the John Dummer Blues Band.Guitarist
McPhee joined Dave as they recorded on the first Dummer album and Rye was the
harp player in the band until just before its recording session.One obvious advantage of having Dave in the
band was that Jo Ann often added additional vocals both on stage and in the
studio.Dave stayed with Dummer until
late 1969 and that year he also put out his first LP in his own name, Keeping
it in the Family, accompanied by Hall and guitarist / vocalist Adrian Pietryga,
also from the Dummer band, former Mayall bassist Keith Tillman and, of course,
Jo Ann.Both the Kellys also performed
on the 1969 album Tramp along with Brunning and Hall and a couple of members of
Fleetwood Mac, drummer Mick Fleetwood and guitarist Danny Kirwan.All in all, sounds like a busy year.

McPhee left the Dummer band to reform his Groundhogs
and Rye was there with him, but left after their first album.Dave and Jo Ann joined Hall in time for the
third Brunning Sunflower Band album (1970), Sunflower being Hall’s nickname,
and Rye played harmonica there as well. Dave’s next solo release was in 1971, Black
Blue Kelly, featuring the same cast as above among its numerous guest
performers but most notably Peter Green.Neither Tramp nor Dave’s two solo LPs are readily available but you will
be hearing the other albums mentioned fairly soon.

But really, even though much of her career was in
support of her brother, our focus should be on Jo Ann herself. The Kellys were born in Streatham in the South
London area, Jo Ann on January 5th 1944 and Dave in 1947.“I started playing guitar when I was about
13.I played just about anything, from
Skiffle, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers to Lonnie Donegan.”She became enamored of the Blues when she was
19 after hearing it at the Swing Shop and met Bob Hall there in 1962.They formed a Blues duo and gained regular
gigs playing the intermissions at the Star club in Croydon, Surrey.One of the headliners were the Yardbirds, who
started a residency in November 1963, and Jo Ann often joined them as a guest
vocalist.Remembering the first meeting,
“I went down to the rehearsal and Eric Clapton was there.I had a background of Everly Brothers and the
song we did was Baby What You Want Me To Do, which is a Jimmy Reed tune.At the rehearsal I did an Everly Brothers
swing while Clapton’s guitar work just knocked me out”.

In 1964 Jo Ann put together four songs from a session
at McPhee’s home on a limited edition EP and three of those open up our first
set.(We learned about a year ago in our
Alexis Korner discussions that there was some kind of tax benefit to limiting a
release to less than 100 copies so again the number here was 99.)In 1965 she added the use of a 12-string
guitar for some of her material and in November she made her first true studio
recordings.“Mike Vernon approached me
to do a couple of tracks for his Purdah label, which have since come out on the
Immediate Anthology of the British Blues albums.The peeving thing about that is that I haven’t
had any royalties despite them selling 99,000 in the States – they must owe me
about 500 pounds.Anyway, I did two
tracks for Vernon and he put me off recording for a long time.The atmosphere was all wrong and he was very unhelpful
… I wasn’t used to studios at all and I hated the whole thing.”McPhee and Rye accompanied Jo Ann on both
songs while Hall added piano along with two Groudhogs Pete Cruikshank on bass
and Vaughn Rees on drums on I Feel So Good; McPhee, Rye and the two Kellys were
the makeup of Ain’t Seen No Whiskey.

In addition to having a full docket of her own gigs,
Jo Ann could be found sitting in with McPhee’s Groundhogs or the Dummer
band.She accepted the offer to join
Dummer in the studio for their first LP, Cabal, where she contributed vocals on
two songs.“Jo Ann Kelly is really great,
she knocks me out.”As Jo Ann put it, “I
do like singing with a band though, but I wouldn’t have a group of my own.There are so many hang-ups with a band.I have a lot of musician friends … and I can
always jam with them when I want”.

Despite her growing acclaim, Jo Ann was not looking
for a recording contract.“I’m just not
interested. … For making money I suppose records are great.But I can earn a comfortable living from folk
clubs and I would rather do that and get better as a singer than have myself on
record.After all, most of the Blues
greats didn’t record until they were over 30.”

At the end of September 1969 she played on the same
bill as Canned Heat (as well as jamming with their harp man Alan Wilson earlier
in the month) and lead singer Bob Hite invited her to join the band.She later regretted turning down the
opportunity. “I now think it would have
been great to do a year with Canned Heat because then I would have had the experience
and made my name.I was just so much
into acoustic Blues – a bit of a purist, I’m afraid.”

She did strike up a deal with Nick Perls, founder of
the old-timey Blues label Yazoo, and Perls set her up with a five year deal
with CBS.Picking a music convention to
launch the contract, the Los Angeles Free Press described her as “a blues
singer from England who looks Mary Hopkinish and sounds like a cross between
Muddy Waters and Big Mama Thornton”.

CBS wanted to team her up with their rising star,
Johnny Winter.She spent four days at
Winter’s retreat in the hills of New York State jamming with Johnny and his
brother Edgar with the idea of combining them on a tour where they would each
do an acoustic set, then a duet and winding up with Jo Ann joining in with
Johnny’s electric band.Everything fell
through when CBS was only willing to pay expenses of $80 a week.“I said, ‘Man, that won’t even take care of
my plane fare, let alone my hotel’.So
the tour didn’t come off, largely because they weren’t prepared to sink any
money into it, and they expected the management to.They were lazy about the whole thing, really,
and I was too ignorant to push for anything.”CBS was done with Jo Ann after her self-titled debut album, recorded
live in clubs, failed to sell up to their standards.

She did get an American tour of sorts (only three gigs)
in 1970 with the New York Times opining, “When you think of girl folk singers,
you tend to find sweet voices with perhaps a touch of Jazz.With this girl you find an old stovepipe with
a touch of rust.A fine Blues singer”.

Over the next few years Jo Ann maintained her active
performance schedule as well as recording sessions for Brunning Hall’s albums
released in 1970 and 1971.She also
joined folk singer John Fahey on a highly respected LP in 1972 and actually
formed her own band that year. Spare Rib, but that project folded after about a
year because of the high cost of keeping a band on the road.

In 1973 she got another American tour, this time with
Taj Mahal and Larry Coryell, and the next year participated in a second Tramp
album, Put a Record On.She met
guitarist Pete Emery, who had been in Dummer’s Oobleedooblee Band, and the two
of them put out a 1976 album, Do It for Red Rag, but surely their greatest
accomplishment was their daughter Ellie.

Remaining popular through the 80s, she recorded for
her brother’s combo, The Blues Band, as well as Chilli Willi and the Red Hot
Peppers, and Stefan Grossman.There was
another Jo Ann Kelly album in 1984, Just Restless, on the Appaloosa label out
of Italy.

Jo Ann went in for surgery on a brain tumor in
September of 1988, leaving with a prognosis of two years life expectancy, too
true of a prediction as she passed away on October 21st 1990 at the
age of 46.

January 14, 2015

Development of the British Blues and Rhythm

--- show
22 ---1-14-2014

Fleetwood Mac

Love Sculpture

It seems like whenever I play Fleetwood Mac I get a lot of response from listeners and our last two
shows were no exception.I had a lot of
good conversations, graciously accepted compliments for how good the music was
(like I had a hand in making it!), and even got three pledges during the show
which is unusual because I always mention it is a good idea to pledge during
the marathons.Anyway, apparently a good
time was had by all and that feeling should carry over through this and the
next show.Originally I planned on doing
three shows, but after going through all their music in my collection I was
surprised at the amount of material that is out there from a band that was only
together between August 1967 and April 1970, the date Peter Green dropped out.

Our first show was comprised entirely of material
recorded over a three-day span at the Boston Tea Party in February of 1970 which
were intended to be winnowed down into a fourth Fleetwood Mac album but was
shelved for decades when Peter Green departed.What finally came out are three CDs, each containing the full show for
one of the appearances with very little redundancy.Then last time we went into their earliest
studio sessions comprising 45s and their first two UK LPs.We open up today’s show with a live
assemblage of Jeremy Spencer’s take on 50s Rock which was previously only
represented by his one side for Immediate, Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head
Kicked in Tonight, before the numerous post-mortem releases came to light. Our second set focuses on the band after Danny
Kirwan joined as another influence on the group’s musical direction, and the
third and closing set is made up of four instrumentals from the Then Play On
album (their third) which are cumulatively referred to as the Madge sessions.Our next airing will show more of Spencer’s
50s Rock taken from live BBC sessions and later his parodies of some of the
respected musicians of the day intended for an EP release that was to be
concurrent to the Then Play On album.So
it’s not like I’m running out of quality content and settling for filler; in
fact, we’ll likely revisit the band later in the year to showcase a double LP
with several of the Chess Records Chicago Blues luminaries and a separate album
joining the great pianist Otis Spann.These were bucking the trend at the time of American Bluesmen traversing
the Atlantic to gather together Britain’s best artists in that these sessions
were recorded in Chicago and New York.

Peter Alan Greenbaum was born October 1946 in East London’s
Bethnal Green district.His first
influence was Bill Haley and other mid-50s rockers but, like so many other
young British guitarists, the Shadows began to influence his playing by
1960.In 1962 he joined the pop-oriented
Bobby Denim and the Dominoes.In 1964,
in addition to his day job as a butcher’s trainee and already into the Blues, Peter
moved on to the Muskrats, which included future Chicken Shack and Savoy Brown
drummer Dave Bidwell.Until joining the
Muskrats Peter had taken to playing the bass, but around the end of his time
with them switched back to guitar.From
the Chuck Berry / Bo Diddley-styled group he moved on to the Bluesbreakers late
in October 1965, months after Clapton took off for a working holiday in Greece.His time with Mayall was cut to just one week
when Eric returned to the band.

Early in 1966, Peter signed on with Peter B and the
Looners, the B standing for Bardens, already a veteran of the Irish band
Them.Mick Fleetwood was the drummer,
the third band in which he was with Bardens, the Senders and the Cheynes being
the predecessors.Peter got his first
studio experience when the Looners put out a single, If You Wanna Be Happy /
Jodrell Blues in March 66, but its lack of success led the mostly instrumental
group to add vocalists Rod Stewart and Beryl Marsden, changing their name to
Shotgun Express, structurally similar to and just after Rod left the short-lived
Steampacket which also featured Long John Baldry, Brian Auger and Julie
Driscoll.Green left before the band
broke up in early 1967, likely due in part to Marsden’s declining Peter’s
marriage proposal.

In August Green began his second term with Mayall’s
long-standing rhythm section of drummer Hughie Flint, a Bluesbreaker since July
1964 as well as playing with John back in Manchester, and John McVie, member of
a Shadows imitator band until he joined Mayall in April 1963.It is reported that at their first gig Mayall
said something like “Let’s do a 12-bar in C” with McVie responding, “What’s
that?” Aynsley Dunbar replaced Flint
shortly after Green joined, together putting out the Hard Road album and a
handful of singles.Mayall was not
entirely pleased with Dunbar’s drumming; not the quality but that it was too
technical and busy for what the bandleader wanted so, upon Green’s suggestion,
Mick Fleetwood was brought in as Dunbar’s replacement.Fleetwood would only last about five weeks,
some sources say even a shorter term, because he partied too much at the gigs.I like the way it was phrased in one of my
well-used books, The Blues-Rock Explosion: “Fleetwood’s need for boozed-up good
times at gigs was greater than his need to keep good time on the drums.”Mayall had already been coping with the same
problem with McVie for years, resulting in multiple terminations of the bass
player, and he wasn’t about to put up with it from the start with a new band member.In spite of
his brief time in the Bluesbreakers, Fleetwood did join McVie and Green in
backing Mayall on the 45 Double Trouble and It Hurts Me Too.

“If John Mayall made up a tape for you, you could bet
on it that there would be everything there about a guitarist or band you needed
to know.”Still, with all the respect
Green had for Mayall’s influence and instruction, neither he nor McVie were
happy with the direction the Bluesbreakers were heading by adding horns to the
stage lineup.

When Green left the Bluesbreakers, he and McVie were
contemplating a visit to Chicago, or maybe Peter would just put in some time
jamming around for a while, but complications acquiring visa and work permits put
an end to dreams of an American visit.In the meantime, one of the producers for Decca Records Mike Vernon,
especially present on Blues recordings, along with his brother Richard was
trying to put together a new label of their own, Blue Horizon.Being a fan of Green from his time with
Mayall, Mike convinced Peter to instead put together his own group and Green
desired Fleetwood and McVie to round out the trio.

Fleetwood was fine with the idea and gave up his
newly-started interior design business, while McVie also liked the idea but was
not ready to give up the financial security of being a Bluesbreaker.Found through an ad placed in the music
magazine Melody Maker for a temporary bass player, their choice Bob Brunning
was now embarking on two new careers after also just receiving his teaching
credential.Bob had played in some local
groups and would go on to form the Brunning-Hall Sunflower Band, but Mac was
his first truly professional gigging and even though his term was limited he
remained a friend of the band, as evidenced by Peter adding his guitar work (and
some vocals) to four tracks for the Sunflower Band LPs.From Mac’s earliest session, Brunning
appeared on two released tracks: their first single I Believe My Time Ain’t
Long (its B-side required no bass) and from their first LP Long Grey Mare. The
45 would be released in November 67 with the LP following in February 68 and
staying on the UK charts for nearly a year.Against Peter’s wishes, Vernon wanted to name the album Peter Green’s
Fleetwood Mac, but through Green’s persistence this was modified to add ”featuring
Jeremy Spencer”, thus giving all four members a portion of the title.

Once the lineup seemed set as a trio, Green wanted to
find someone to open up for the band in order to not have to hit the stage to a
cold audience, so Vernon pointed out the diminutive (5’4”) Jeremy Spencer in what
was by all accounts an otherwise lackluster Levi Blues Set.Most impressive was Jeremy’s mastery of the
style of Elmore James, but he was also an accomplished piano player and vocalist,
all of which should satisfy Green’s desire to share the spotlight.With this in mind and the band already signed
to Blue Horizon, Vernon convinced Green to make Spencer a full-fledged member
of the group.After a brief rehearsal
period, the band was prepared for their debut at the Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival
on August 13th, 1967.Brunning’s
total time with the band would turn out to be only about a month as McVie would
join the lineup in time to easily make the November studio session that would
fill out the debut album. The band was
finally set as it had been originally conceptualized, plus the added talents of
Spencer.

Regarding the debut album, Beat Instrumental declared
it “the best English Blues LP ever released here”, and a writer from the New
Musical Express found relief from his pondering: “I wondered where the early
Animal and Stones music had gone…well, here it is.”But by the time the LP reached our shores,
Rolling Stone’s appraisal was only halfway as complimentary: “On this, their
first recorded effort, Fleetwood Mac have established themselves as another
tight English Blues Band.”“(They) know
what they’re doing, they dig the music they’re playing and that’s great, but
the drawback here is that they don’t put enough of themselves into it instead
of what they’ve heard from the original artists.”

A month after the successful release of their first
album, the March release of the single Black Magic Woman topped out at #37,
curiously low considering its influence especially on one Carlos Santana.Their next release in July, Need Your Love So
Bad which featured orchestral backing, fared a little better at #31, but that
month also saw their first American tour turn out a disaster mostly due to
mismanagement on the US side.

By now, Spencer’s role within the band was becoming
increasingly diminished which caused him to feel as though he were being
slighted, so he would sit backstage and mope.His actions did not please Green either.“I had two parts to play because Jeremy wasn’t going to make the effort
to learn my things – to play properly on the piano.I was told he could play properly but never
saw him do that.” Therefore, when May
rolled around and it was time to record the second LP, Mr. Wonderful, McVie’s
girlfriend Christine Perfect (who had recently retired from “the other” Blue
Horizon band Chicken Shack) was enlisted to provide piano on some of Green’s
material.Also used on the album were
Johnny Almond on tenor sax (one of four horn players) and Peter’s one-man-band
buddy Duster Bennett blowing away on harmonica, who himself was now signed to
Blue Horizon as well.Spencer is listed as playing piano but I must
presume this is solely on his own material.The album came out in August and peaked at #10 UK but its American
counterpart English Rose didn’t find its way into the record bins until six
months later (just as was the case with the first LP) and failed to chart at
all.I don’t have reviews of the full
LP, but Rolling Stone did deem the album’s track Love That Burns the “finest
white recording of the Blues ever made.”

On August 14th 1968 after the band returned
from their US tour, an addition was made in the form of guitarist / vocalist /
songwriter Danny Kirwan who, with his trio Boilerhouse, had opened up for Mac
in shows dating as far back as about a year earlier.Like Spencer before him, Danny was the
standout in this mediocre trio and knocked out his headliners.At first, an attempt was made to find an
adequate rhythm section for Kirwan to front but, when that failed, Vernon
suggested Danny would meet Green’s desire to have another guitarist to work off
of.Green remembers Fleetwood
suggesting, “’Why don’t you get him in?”I didn’t want to at first, but Mick persuaded me that we could do some
interesting things with two guitars…and he was right.I would never have done Albatross if it
wasn’t for Danny.I never would have had
a number one hit record”.Brunning saw
Danny at the time he joined the band as “a painfully shy and polite new-boy who
was in awe of everyone in the band and even in awe of people like me who were
to do with the band”.

For the group’s second American LP English Rose,
several of the tunes from Mr. Wonderful were replaced by newer ones featuring
Kirwan.My thought was that they wished
the album to be more like the stage show but my information says the disc came
out in February while the tour ended in January, so something is askew.Strange that the company wouldn’t have the
two coincide.

Around December of 1968, Fleetwood Mac headed out for
their second US tour which went better than the last one.The highlight of the tour was not any of the
concerts but the fact that they had the opportunity to play with some of the
best American Bluesmen.In January,
probably due to his status as A&R man for Chess Records, Willie Dixon was
able to put the boys together for two days of sessions featuring various
combinations with guitarists Buddy Guy and Dave “Honeyboy” Edwards, harpman Big
Walter “Shakey” Horton, tenor saxist J.T. Brown, drummer S.P. Leary and pianist
Otis Spann at the label’s Chicago recording studio.Dixon, of course, added some stand-up bass to
the sessions including a handful of tunes featuring Jeremy Spencer’s
adaptations of Elmore James’ material.Sitting
in on those tracks was Brown, who was Elmore’s sax player on so many of those
classic 50s recordings, and he was blown away by the accuracy of Spencer’s
renditions.I have no chart datafor the album, but it must have suffered considerably
since the double LP was held back until December when the band’s direction was morphing
away from the strict Blues they had been known for at the beginning of the
year.Spann was impressed enough that he
got Green, Kirwan and McVie to join him and Leary at the end of their tour
later in January for the sessions which produced his Blue Horizon album The
Biggest Thing Since Colossus.

Blue Horizon had signed Mac to a one year contract
with a company option for a second year but somehow the Vernons forgot to renew
and Mac became free agents just as Albatross was riding the very top of the
charts and just before the tour began.In keeping with Green’s ideas toward money not being the be all and end
all of any kind of agreement, he was against the change but this time lost out
and in early summer the band signed with Reprise.Also recorded in New York before their journey
home was their next single, Man of the World paired with Jeremy’s rocker
Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight under the pseudonym Earl
Vince and the Valiants.The 45 was
released in April 1969 on the Immediate label as a one-off deal falling between
the two contracts. It started slowly but
payola brought about airplay and the disc rose to #2 and kicked Mac from the
large pub scene into the more profitable concert halls and stadiums.

Jeremy Spencer’s humor was an integral part of the Fleetwood
Mac stage shows, and an October 1968 session was held just for the purpose of
creating the experience on an EP.It was
plenty funny to me and I imagine some of this style of jocularity would be a
hilarious addition interspersed with his 50s Rock mimicry.The imaginary Milton Schlitz is supposed to
typify the American MCs who might also supplement their income by doing TV ads
for used car lots.On the semi-musical
side, he portrays Alexis Korner, a Doo Wop group, Lightnin’ Hopkins (the only
tune omitted because it was just a little too slow), a generic psychedelic
group and winds up mocking Peter Green’s mentor John Mayall.The irreverent disc was to be an accompanying
piece to the band’s third LP, Then Play On, which indeed Jeremy did not play on.While the album came out in September, the EP
never hit the record racks. Green said, “We would like him to do that sort of
thing more often, but if an audience is cold he won’t do it.”

Spencer’s humor could often be pornographic and/or
tasteless as in the time the band was banned from the Marquee after the focal
point on stage was a 16” pink dildo (named Harold and Jeremy’s proud possession)
protruding outside his trousers.As
Chicken Shack and later Savoy Brown bass player Andy Silvester put it, “I
always remember Fleetwood Mac as a happy band but a band with a bizarre
humor.They used to take things too far,
and Jeremy was the instigator of this”.

Ultimately, Jeremy was in a world of his own.While the others were out doing things on
their days off during the 1970 US tour, Jeremy could be found all on his
lonesome smoking dope and reading the New Testament.

Mac was in the studio over a four month span beginning
in April 1969 to lay down tracks for their first Reprise LP, Then Play On,
released in September.According to
Green, “We should have had a producer on Then Play On, then it might have sold
better.We tried to produce it
ourselves, like other bands did at the time, thinking it would be more fun.”

Recording engineer Martin Birch took on much of that
responsibility although not the producer’s title.Around this time, Kirwan began to think of
his idol Green as more of a competitor, and Birch recalled, “When we’d finish
one of his tracks, Danny would say, ‘I’d like Peter to hear this’.And Peter would say, ‘Well, if you like it
then that’s fine with me’.I often got
the impression that Danny was looking for Peter’s approval whereas Peter wanted
Danny to develop himself by doing it himself.”

In an attempt to cash in on one last time on the
recordings still in their vault, Blue Horizon put together The Pious Bird of
Good Omen LP and released it just before the Reprise album.The album, comprised of outtakes and 45 sides
that had not been on British albums previously, reached #18.

The British press came out strongly in favor of the
new album, with Melody Maker seeing Then Play On as “a great leap forward for
the Mac” and Beat Instrumental declaring it “Fleetwood Mac, at their very, very
best. … Peter Green’s characteristic guitar is evident throughout, and this LP
can only add to his fast-growing stature as one of the best guitarists in
Britain.”

In a Rolling Stone review of the album, the magazine
suggests that Mac is giving up the Blues: “Tired of being another British Blues
band, the group has said goodbye to Elmore James and has moved into the
pop-rock field.On this album they fall
flat on their faces”, which prompted Green to say during the 1970 US tour, “We’re
not getting out of Blues or out of anything.It’s just that we’re getting into more things – you see we did some
blues tonight“.He also spoke of the
album in September 1969, “There is nothing I feel I could have done better”.

Released the same month as Then Play On was Oh Well
(parts 1 & 2): “I like it because it represents me at my two extremes – as
wild as I can be and my first sort of semi-classical attempt.”Within a week of its release, the 45 reached
#2 and stayed on the charts for 16 weeks

Although highly respected, Fleetwood Mac never did
quite make the top tier as Mick felt they should. “I believe we’d have had the same status as
Led Zeppelin in America.Led Zeppelin
had a schtick, they had a lead singer with an image.I think Fleetwood Mac had a great image, a
fun-loving bunch of lads.Peter Green
was every bit as much a talent as Jimmy Page.”

“There were a million groups making a mockery of the
Blues.And a million guitarists playing
as fast as they could and calling it Blues.Some people think that the Blues is just a way of playing guitar but it
isn’t.The Blues really is about having
the Blues.”These were Green’s comments
during the sixties and in a February 1996 article in Guitar Player Magazine he
expressed that, “I didn’t understand the Blues well enough so I stopped.The Blues was too deep.It got too painful. … the Blues is something
you spend a lifetime in, and you have to understand it to play it. …The Blues
ended up hurting my soul so I stopped it and started to make up stories instead.
… I had to give up because it wasn’t mine, it didn’t belong to me. … The Blues
is something you have to work at and I wasn’t learning it fast enough.”

In a May 1998 Guitar Player interview, Kirwan
concurred. “If you’re a white man you
have to learn the Blues, you don’t know them.It’s as simple as that. … those guys were blacks singing and playing
about what it is to be black in their country, which isn’t really their
country.”

This
would appear an appropriate place to interject another view, that of Leroi
Jones in his excellent book Blues People, with one black man’s perspective on
whites taking up black music."The
Negro's music changed as he changed ... (and ultimately) created a music that
had offered such a profound reflection of America that it could attract white
Americans to play it or to listen to it. ... Unlike the earlier blackface acts
and the minstrels who sought to burlesque certain facets of Negro life, ...
white jazz musicians ... wanted to play the music because they thought it emotionally
and intellectually stimulating. ... the entrance of the white man at this level
of sincerity and emotional legitimacy did at least bring him, by implication,
much closer to the Negro ... (and) served to place the Negro ... in a position
of intelligent regard it had never enjoyed before. ...The music of the white jazz musician ... was
... a learned art. ... blues is an extremely important part of jazz. ... jazz
utilizes the blues 'attitude' ... the white musician could understand ... to
arrive at a style of jazz music. ... Afro-American music did not become a
completely American expression until the white man could play it!"

During all three of Mac’s American tours a friendship
with the Grateful Dead grew as the bands shared the same tickets and occasionally
got together on stage.“When I first
heard Grateful Dead’s jamming, I thought it was a bit boring.But then if you listened to it when you’d
taken some LSD you could get into it and understand what they were doing.”Whether it was the LSD or some other
influence, Peter became obsessed with not needing money.He wished to follow in the footsteps of the
Dead with free concerts and encourage bootleg tapes of their appearances.

Green was more deeply embracing both Christianity and
Buddhism to the point that he even renounced his Jewish faith.“I had a strong feeling I was walking and
talking with God.I was drawing away
from music into being just a Christian person and it made me such a very, very
happy person.”Towards the end of the
Then Play On sessions, he and Spencer announced plans to do an orchestral
project telling the story of Jesus but it never reached fruition.

There is a myth that was going around how Peter was
abducted while in Munich and brainwashed by the use of LSD, but both Green and road
manager Denny Keen, the only member of the Mac entourage who accompanied him
claimed, first off, that he accepted an offer to join this group of artists for
an afternoon during which, secondly, he did take the drug but that everything
he did was by his own choice and not forced upon him.They stayed overnight as Green spent some
time jamming to some downbeat avant garde music, but regarding the next day’s
concert, “I felt marvelous – kind of fresh not grubby.We played all our usual stuff, but then when
I jammed I couldn’t believe what I was coming out with – I was coming out with
things I didn’t know I could play and the notes seemed to be going all around
the room like machine-gun fire which left bulletmarks in the walls”.

Peter’s final gig was at the Bath City Football
grounds at the end of May, followed up shortly with one last BBC
appearance.The last of his recordings
with the group was released that month, The Green Manalishi (with the Two Prong
Crown) b/w World in Harmony, going to #10 in the UK.September saw the release of Kiln House, the
first Fleetwood Mac disc sans Green, which was recorded as a quartet.Peter’s first solo release came in November
with a series of instrumental jams under the album title The Name of the Game.

There is more to say about the circumstances
surrounding the departures of Spencer and then Kirwan, but in order to get this
out today that shall have to wait ‘til our next show, so I think I’ll make my
outro here from Mick’s 1990 biography Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures with
Fleetwood Mac: “We were a rude, wild, fun-loving bunch of people who simply
didn’t give a fuck.Fleetwood Mac never
wanted to be pure Blues like John Mayall or Rock like Hendrix or Cream.We were a funny, vulgar, drunken vaudeville
Blues band in that time (1967-70) playing music as much to amuse ourselves as
please an audience and make money.”